Zulu Home Life.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3486, 26 February 1880, Page 3

Zulu Home Life.

A writer says the military kraals of each regiment are the villages of Zululand, and it is to them we must go to see the home life of the people. These kraals consist of a large field, surrounded by a stockade about ten feet high, constructed of wattles firmly twisted together. Inside this fence are the huts of the natives, which are^ built by fixing in the ground a number of pliant poles in a circle, and then bringing their points together at the summit, and fastening them with ropes of hide. These poles, however, do not go up parallel to one another, but cross each other obliquely at regular intervals; and as the. intersecting points are firmly tied together, the beehive-shaped huts have all the strength of a basket work ; while stout" posts driven deeply into the earth at the base give them additional security. The wallls outside and in are daubed over with clay ; and the floor is also composed of clay, stamped down bard and polished by friction. The Zulu hut, Captain Lucas tells us in his recent work, ' is not at all an unjcdrnfortable or unsightly dwelling, though affording but a single room for the accommodation of the family.' A partition of wattles, however, divides the interior of a married man's hut into two parts, of which the left hand room, as one opens the door of wattles, is given over to the women and children, while the other apartments is reserved to the master of the house and his male companions. In each compartment are kept the personal ohaltels.of Us occupants : in the -man's, his assegais, his shield and rifle, with bis uniform of plumes,-cow-tails, and apron of wild cat skin ; while the woman besides their simple finery of gala dress, keep the pots of milk, the stores of grain and the cooking utensils; and under the raised platform on which they sit the Zulu herdsman shelters his precious lambs and calves from the incleniency of the weather.